How to Save a Life
by Scheherazade's Daughter
Summary: May wakes up in the middle of the night, knowing something is wrong. Maternal instinct? She finds Jemma in the kitchen, unable to sleep because of the toll recent events have been taking on her. As May gets the scientist to open up, she realizes just how much Jemma has been holding inside. TW for suicidal ideation, formerly Midnight Confessions.


Agent Melinda May woke up, startled. She cast her mind back, trying to figure out which nightmare had woken her this time. No; it hadn't been a nightmare. So what was it? Well, she wasn't going to get any more sleep; that much she knew, so, throwing on some sweat pants, she left her bunk and headed into the kitchen. Milk, if she recalled correctly from listening to Simmons's carryings-on, contained amino acids that made you tired, or something like that.

As she padded into the kitchen in her thick socks, she smiled as she thought of Fitzsimmons and Skye, her science children, as she called them in the privacy of her own mind. They reminded her of herself when she was younger, before she was the Cavalry. Skye's "bad girl shenanigans", Fitz's insatiable curiosity, and Simmons's excitability and quickness to smile. She felt a small pang every time she saw them. They hadn't even been in the field for a year and already Jemma had jumped out of a plane, Skye had been shot, and Fitz sent on a suicide mission without his knowledge. And she could see the difference. Less smiling, less talking, more brooding. You can't stop children from growing up, however much you want to.

She opened the fridge and reached for the milk, but a soft noise stopped her. Closing the fridge, she whirled around, cursing herself for leaving her gun in her bunk. But it was only Jemma Simmons, sitting at the table, head in her hands. Quietly, May approached her, and saw the tear tracks glistening on her cheeks. Not knowing what to do, she approached Jemma and stood next to her.

"Simmons?" she asked. Jemma looked up, her eyes red and underlined with dark half-moons. May guessed that being up crying at one a.m. wasn't exactly unusual for the young biochemist.

"Oh, hello Agent May!" Jemma said, with extremely fake cheer. "Trouble sleeping?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Nothing a little tryptophan won't fix," she said brightly, but May didn't miss the catch in her voice. "Would you pass me the milk?"

May was tempted to leave her there, just give her the milk and let her cry it out on her own. May was terrible with people, and in situations like this could easily make the person feel worse if she didn't concentrate. But she'd woken up for a reason, and she simply couldn't shake the feeling that something here was very, very wrong.

May sat down at the table next to the young scientist and took a deep breath.

"Simmons—Jemma," she began. "I know things have been tough lately. But you can talk to me." It was more words than she usually said at one time, and her vocal cords felt out of practice.

Jemma looked up, surprised that May would make such an offer. "I'm okay," she insisted. "I mean, you've probably had worse, you and Ward and Coulson all. I'm just getting all upset over nothing."

"And what nothing would that be?" May asked probingly.

"Just … everything," Jemma confessed, looking down again.

May knew what she meant. The bus being hijacked. Seeing Skye almost die. Learning Fitz and Ward had no extraction plan. Jumping out of a plane, throwing herself on a grenade … for someone new to the field, it was a lot to carry around. May was especially nervous about her apparent willingness, eagerness even, to make the sacrifice play. It was nothing you wouldn't see in any seasoned specialist, but in a twenty-six-year-old scientist with no ops training? It worried her, to say the least.

"Is there anything you need to get off your chest?" May asked, looking for a way in. Normally the scientist didn't need any prodding at all to start talking, which worried her even more.

"I-I'm just tired," Jemma began slowly. "It's like, I wake up in the mornings, and the whole day I'm just looking forward to being able to go to sleep again. I can't concentrate on my work, and then I hate myself for it because I'm letting you all down, and I don't want to talk to Fitz or Skye or play backgammon with Ward, and then I just hate myself more because that's letting them down just as much as not pulling my weight on the team." Her voice broke, and she began crying again.

May didn't know what to say. She hadn't thought much about what she would do after she'd gotten Jemma to open up. She wished Coulson were here. He would know how to handle this. He was good with people, knew how to talk to them. May took a deep breath.

"It's okay, Jemma," she said, tentatively resting her hand on the young woman's wrist. Usually she didn't like contact, but touch was comforting, right? "You're not letting anybody down."

"Yes I am," Jemma sobbed, taking May's hand and holding onto it for dear life. "I can't do anything right. I'm useless and I rely on you and Ward and Coulson every time I get myself into a scrape. I can't even take care of myself, much less anyone else."

May was silent, but kept holding on to Jemma's hand, hoping that action would make up for her lack of words. After a minute, the scientist looked up at May, her eyes full of pain.

"Agent Ward left his gun next to the sink," she whispered.

The air became ten degrees colder, and May's blood turned to ice at the thought of what Jemma's words meant. This was what had woken her, no doubt about it. They sat in silence for a moment, before May stood up and walked back into the kitchen to deal with the elephant in the room. Jemma said nothing, but sat still until May came back in holding Ward's firearm. She placed it on the table in front of them as she sat back down.

"I've been in Ops a long time," May began, "and I've seen too many people, good people, eat their guns because they couldn't see an end."

Jemma half-scoffed. "Don't tell me you've never thought about it," she said bitterly.

May was silent. In truth, she had, back during those dark days when Phil was "dead" and the guilt about not being with him had been too much. She'd spent hours at the pharmacy, wandering the aisles looking through the various painkillers and decongestants, wondering which combinations would be the most lethal. But she didn't tell Jemma any of this.

"That isn't the point," May said sternly. "The point is, there's no reason to do this."

"So I suppose now you're going to tell me it gets better, easier?" Jemma asked sarcastically.

"No. Because it doesn't."

Jemma raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"It doesn't get better, but you can learn to live with it," said May, looking the biochemist straight in the eye.

"I don't want to live with this," Jemma said fearfully. "I can't stand to feel this way for another second."

"You can, I promise. Here, let me get you some water. You're probably dehydrated from all that crying."

May got up, took Ward's gun off the table, and went to the kitchen. Jemma was scaring her, genuinely scaring her. Her science children really weren't children at all, not anymore. She hid Ward's gun in the cupboard where she could retrieve it later, making a mental note to discuss proper handling of firearms with him later and at length, and took a glass out of the cupboard. Reaching into the silverware drawer, she pulled out the bottle of soproxomol, the sleeping meds she knew Ward kept there for nights when he couldn't doze off. She pulled apart two gel capsules and poured the powder into the bottom of the cup, then filled it with water, keeping an eye on Jemma the whole time to make sure she didn't move. The woman stayed in her chair, eyes cast down, while May returned with the water.

"Drink," May ordered. Jemma sipped it listlessly, then, realizing how thirsty she was, drank the rest.

"Thanks," she told the specialist. "I don't know why you're being so nice to me."

"Why wouldn't I be?"

Jemma shrugged. "Because, well, because you're always so …"

"Cold?"

"I guess so. No offence or anything, it's just that you never really say much, and you're always by yourself, and I suppose I always thought you found me annoying, me and Fitz and Skye. Scientists, always rambling on about proxy servers and recombinant DNA and holographic engineering. Gets quite tiresome, I'd imagine."

"No," May said. She felt her throat loosen up, and words come out, words that weren't actually necessary, but that she thought might make Jemma feel better. "I do care. You're my team, my family. And I could never find any of you annoying. I was actually coming down here to get some milk because I remembered you saying it had tryptophan in it."

The biochemist looked up at her. "Really?"

"Really. I don't know where the hell you got the idea you're useless." Before Jemma could contradict her, she said, "I start my training every day at five. Meet me in the cargo bay some time tomorrow morning; I can teach you a few things that might help."

"All right. What's the harm, I suppose?" She was already slurring, and she must have realized it. "What did you give me?" she asked, alarmed.

"A sedative."

"You dosed me …"

"You needed it."

"Yes, I suppose so …"

"Come on, I'll walk you to your room." May stood up and half carried Jemma down the hall to her bunk. The woman was already losing consciousness; May belatedly remembered that Ward weighed half again as much as she did, so his dose had been a bit too much for her. Carefully, as if handling a child, May lifted Jemma onto the bed and made sure she was settled comfortably, then pulled the blankets up to her chin. She looked at Jemma, who was well and truly under at this point, and stood next to the bed for a good long while, simply watching the woman sleep. She looked so innocent, lying in bed like that, though at this point May knew she was far from it. She reached her hand out and stroked Jemma's forehead.

"Sweet dreams," she whispered, feeling silly, as she stepped back into the hallway and closed the door.

May ran into Phil Coulson as she was walking back to her own bunk.

"What are you doing up at this hour?" he inquired, quirking an eyebrow. "The plane can fly itself, you know."

"I was putting Simmons to bed after I drugged her."

"Oh."

"Keep an eye on her, would you? She's not doing too well."

"I will. Though somehow I think you've got it covered."

May gave him her characteristic half-smile before retiring to her bunk. She did have it covered, she realized. A few kind words, a touch on the wrist, the promise of help … and she _would_ help, too. She wasn't going to lose Jemma, not like she'd lost Wainwright, or Alain, or Samuels, or any of her other comrades. She would keep her science children safe, all of them. Maybe she couldn't stop them growing up, but she could cushion the blows, catch them when they fell, be their rock. The thought gave her peace, though she knew this was far from over.

But Jemma would be okay. May would see to that personally, give her everything she needed, teach her to control the demons, get her more help if it became necessary. Already she was mentally flipping through the different techniques she knew and resources at her disposal and contacts she had in SHIELD psych.

Staring up at the darkness, Melinda May finally allowed her eyes to close and sleep to overtake her.


End file.
